United's dominance at Newark Liberty International Airport brings conveniences and higher fares

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/05/uniteds_dominance_at_newark_li.html

The effect of United’s new dominance at Newark Liberty International Airport stunned Norman Levy when he started shopping for a late-summer flight to San Francisco.

Levy, a retired investment banker from Tenafly who had been a longtime Continental flier, priced a United flight for two adults at $1,584. If he was willing to leave from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, where United faces more competition, the fare dropped to $986, a difference of nearly $600.
“I’m a fairly careful consumer,” Levy said. “I was shocked at the difference in the fares.”
Levy ended up paying even less — $609 for two round-trip tickets on Virgin America from JFK. If he decides to take a limousine to New York, he said he will still pay much less than the cost of the United flight from Newark.

United Airlines gained a new hold over Newark Liberty after it merged with Continental Airlines, which had controlled nearly 70 percent of the flying business at Newark. United’s dominance is even stronger, providing consumers with a variety of travel conveniences, but also wielding a unique power that travelers and experts say makes flying from Newark more pricey.


Read More: http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/05/uniteds_dominance_at_newark_li.html

Pretty soon people will be calling it a "monopoly"

It's not surprising that VX was cheaper, they're trying to become more than a niche airline.

Flying to the hubs, any of them, just to go to the hub itself as opposed to connecting, seems to have gotten expensive. Though to be fare, if sales are up to go places, there is huge competition for the lower fares to the hubs. While the guy may have found cheaper fares leaving from other airports, the key would be cheaper fares in what bucket? The assumption in the reporting... both in the story and apparently by OP... is that it is a fair comparison, fare bucket to fare bucket. We don't know that it is.

The merger actually didn't affect prices on the route noted AFAIK. It was always stupid high, especially without a 3 night/Saturday night stay. If the guy is willing to pay for the limo and deal with the 2ish hour ride to the airport then he can save some money. That's the way the market is supposed to work.

Yep, which is why I sometimes pick the p.s. route into JFK instead as it's sometimes cheaper.

Thats why people need to switch airlines occasionally and not have blind loyalty. The more competition there is the better off we are.

Same here but I have moved all travels to LGA and JFK.

Lets look at this the other way....

Who says $1,500 for two tickets to the west coast is "high?" That's $750 each, or $375 for each one way. Back out true government taxes and airport fees, that leaves perhaps $300 to the carrier. To travel some 2,500 miles. A little more than 10 cents per mile. To travel at a little less than the speed of sound.

While I like low fares as much as the next guy, $750 each for round trip to the west coast is probably a marginally profitable fare for the carriers.

If there is a lower fare out of JFK, and with the added transit costs, if the savings exceeds the price these two pax value their time...then they should consider it. Too often people don't factor in the value of their own time into such equations.

That ewr fare might not be as bad as they once thought.

Agreed.
I have always been surprised that there is so much less capacity on EWR-SFO/LAX as compared to JFK. So they can charge a premium for EWR originating travel and create a pricing umbrella by filling the rest with flow traffic instead of discounting

I agree.
I still have the 99 NYC-West Coast fares imbedded in my head, even the price of oild has tripled since then .Going back to reality , I try to get fares under 10 cents per miles. We are all use to seeing cheap fares but need to realize the airlines need to make money . . They can't keep on sacrificing the workers and need to increase the prices. I have accepted the fact that prices of Xmas will be triple the cost of non holiday weeks and factor that in (and use airlines that reward you when you are stuck paying the high prices (like B6). People should be smart and shop around (and switch to other airlines occasionaly).

The new reality is transcon fares starting form $400 and likely closer to $600 roundtrip. $199-$299 each way will be the cheapest fares. Airlines have adjusted capacity to demand at those price levels and with oil staying at $100/barrel, that's what it takes

I don't see even VX offering $300 RTs any longer

Newark, welcome to what we deal with in Houston. Unless we want to use Hobby (and fly the greyhound of the sky) we are in the same boat.

That may all be true but that doesn't explain (at least to this NJ citizen) why JFK and LGA are so much cheaper!

B6 and VX compete on the California routes and DL/AA on other routes. You may find good deals On tthe WN routes out of EWR.

That's easy: competition (or lack thereof, in your case).

With limited exception, from EWR, you're in a largely captive market at this point. If you live west or south of EWR, you would need meaningful savings to traverse NYC to go to JFK/LGA. Similarly, if you are on the Island or CT, you're hard-pressed to go out to EWR.

Thankfully, at JFK/LGA, no carrier has more than 45% market share. (Post-swap, DL will be at 45% per this article.) At JFK, I'd wager the top three carriers don't have 70% market share combined, and one of them is a semi-LCC (B6). At EWR, per this article, UA has 71% market share!

And depending on where in Jersey one is, Philly and US could be an option.